Formatting columns

If you want to set up a page's margins and divide it into columns, MS Word makes you go to Files/Page Setup for the margins and then Format/Columns to set the number and size of the columns.

Star- and Open- Office are designed to do "everything in one place". Click on Format/Page and you can set all aspects of your page. For greater compatibility with MS Word, recent versions of these word processors include Columns on the Format menu.

If you are doing a multi-page document with a varying number of columns on different pages, consider setting up page style sheets for each different page layout. You can then choose your column layout, whether for left or right page - important when you are going to print on both sides of the page - with a couple of clicks. It is particularly easy to do in Star- and Open- Office and is what I used for many of the issues of "Thuggery" that you will find in our Newsletter Archive.

Column change

Recent versions of Microsoft Word allow you to change the number of columns midway through a page. You do this by choosing to have the columns "From this point on".

StarOffice and OpenOffice.org do not do it that way. To change the number of columns midway through a page in these word processors, you click on Insert and then Section. However, don't try to alter things in the middle of a long and complex document as it may destroy the formatting on subsequent pages and, in any case, will take quite a long time to finish whatever change it does make. Make the changes on a blank page by inserting the sections at the top of the page and then typing or pasting in the text into the appropriate section.

Decorating your text

You can decorate your text by using "Drop Caps".

A drop cap is a large capital letter that "drops" into a text. Drop caps appear at the start of chapters in antiquated books, but you can find other uses for them.

To create a drop cap in Word 2000 or later, follow these steps:

• Click anywhere in the paragraph whose first letter you want to "drop."
• Choose Format, Drop Cap.
• In the Drop Cap dialog box, choose which kind of drop cap you want by clicking a box.
• Choose a font from the Font drop-down list.
• In the Lines to Drop scroll box, choose how many text lines the letter should "drop on."
• Keep the O setting in the Distance From the Text box unless you're dropping an I, 1, or other skinny letters or numbers.
• Click OK.

If you're not in Page Layout View, a dialogue box asks whether you want to go there. Click Yes and you'll see your drop cap in all its glory.

The procedure in OpenOffice.org/StarOffice 6 or later is slightly different:

• Click anywhere in the paragraph whose first letter you want to "drop."
• Choose Paragraph and click the Drop Cap tab
• In the Drop Cap dialog box, click Display Drop Cap, or Whole Word if that is what you want.
• In the Number of Characters box, choose how many characters you want to drop.
• In the Lines box, choose how many lines the character(s) should drop.
• Keep the O setting in the Distance From the Text box unless you're dropping an I, 1, or other skinny letters or numbers.
• Ignore the remaining two boxes, unless you are after a special effect.
• Click OK.
• If you want to change the font of the dropped character, you will need to do that by left-clicking beside it and then right-clicking and choosing Character.
• Apply whatever character formatting you want, including changing the colour of the letter(s) or the background, turning the letter(s) into a hyperlink, and adding font effects, such as shadow.
• Click OK.